Browsing by Subject "Community-based management"

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    A Progress Evaluation of National Geographic's Geotourism Program
    (2012-04-26) Torres, Hannah; Nystrom, Joel; Stern, Tamar; Brouwer, Susannah
    In response to the deleterious effects of traditional mass tourism, National Geographic launched a Geotourism Program in 1997 in an effort to sustain or enhance the geographical character of a place – its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage, and the well-being of its residents. A major tenet of Geotourism is establishing an evaluation process for strategies implemented by Geotourism destinations. This study targets one stakeholder group - businesses featured on the Geotourism MapGuide - through an exploratory case study approach to create a methodology and establish baseline data for a participant evaluation system. Data collection instruments determine the social, economic and environmental impacts of the Geotourism Project as perceived by participants in two destinations: Sierra Nevada and Crown of the Continent. Analysis of results yields recommendations for how stakeholder education and involvement, impact measurement, and project positioning can be more effectively integrated into each destination’s strategic plan.
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    Analysis of aboveground carbon for indigenous communities in Oaxaca, MX
    (2021-12-08) Harrigan, Elise
    Managing forests for carbon is a productive and sustainable way to provide conservation and economic and ecological value. Oaxaca, the most biologically diverse state in Mexico, located in the southwestern region of the country, is looking to expand carbon offset opportunities on indigenous lands. The client for this project, a Oaxacan-based NGO, Integrator Campesino and Indigenous Communities of Oaxaca (ICICO), is working in conjunction with indigenous communities, to manage and protect natural resources while providing sustainable livelihood opportunities. Carbon offset programs are emerging as a promising method in conserving the forests’ biodiversity, while still providing monetary value to the local people by selling credits on the carbon market. This project aims to (1) evaluate the current methodologies and allometric equations in use to calculate the aboveground carbon in the forest, (2) analyze if the current aboveground biomass map accurately depicts the carbon distribution across the state, and (3) identify future carbon offset project locations across the communally owned lands. As forests continue to be at risk of deforestation, the importance of creating community-based conservation opportunities is increasingly more valuable.
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    Comanagement of U.S. Marine Protected Areas: Current Efforts and their Potential Implications for Seagrass Management at Fishers Island, New York
    (2016-04-27) Collier, Chantal
    Comanagement is practiced in many countries and recommended as an appropriate, equitable and effective approach to place-based, marine resource management. However, few examples of collaboratively managed marine protected areas (MPAs) involving government and community partners are found in the United States (U.S.). Efforts to share management of MPAs by the state and local communities have emerged in Florida, Hawai‘i, and California. These cooperative agreements demonstrate an alternative to the top-down, centralized government approach to natural resource management commonly practiced in the U.S. What conditions enabled or challenged the emergence of comanagement for these MPAs? How have local community norms, values and knowledge contributed to marine resource problem-solving in each case? Can experiences drawn from these cases inform or improve MPA management in other states? Recent legislation requiring the State of New York to designate Seagrass Management Areas and consult with local community members to effectively protect, manage and restore seagrass provides an opportunity to investigate these questions. This study reveals the conditions and strategies whereby solutions to MPA management problems emerged as a result of iterative, collaborative processes for Rookery Bay in Florida, Hā‘ena in Hawai‘i, and Catalina Island in California, where the state and local community share management responsibilities. For each case, I describe the development of MPAs and the collaborative agreement, identify the conditions that gave rise to comanagement, and map its problem-solving functions in the context of the social-ecological system. Drawing upon my analysis, I recommend strategies to enhance MPA comanagement and propose new conditions or drivers essential for comanagement of MPAs. Existing preconditions and the potential for a cooperative approach to seagrass management at Fishers Island, New York are derived from community members’ perceptions, values, hopes and concerns regarding local marine resources and the prospect of Seagrass Management Areas.
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    Management Analysis of an Internationally Shared Waterbody: The Yellow Sea Large Marine Ecosystem
    (2006) Skilbred, Jennifer Dianne
    Internationally shared waterbodies face a difficult set of managemment challenges, and many are being exploited at unsustainable rates. This report looks at the United Nations Environment Program’s Regional Seas program and the Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) concept, which have been developed as management tools for improving the sustainability of transboundary marine ecosystems. The Yellow Sea LME is possibly the most intensively exploited and degraded LME worldwide. Six management options were reviewed using criteria developed to discover the best path towards sustainable marine resource use. The most promising option is to combine an expanded version of the current programs with a community-based management component to ensure quicker implementation of programs and to increase community involvement. International management plans of shared areas are extremely difficult to put in place in a way that satisfies all constituents as well as meets all goals, combining the use of tools such as ecosystem and community based management may be most effective at achieving project goals.
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    Management Prioritization in a Public-Facing Urban Wetland
    (2023-04-28) Carvalho, Juliana; Chase, Benjamin
    The Museum of Life and Science is a nature center and science museum located in Durham, North Carolina, working to understand and improve the health of an urban wetland ecosystem located on their campus. The majority of the natural land cover within the wetland’s watershed is forested and managed by the Museum, so a forest inventory and management analysis was conducted to understand potential impacts on the wetland. Interviews and a literature review produced alternatives for community-based environmental management in urban ecosystems that formed a basis for a multi-criteria decision analysis framework. This paper provides a decision-making methodology for the Museum of Life and Science to assess potential environmental management decisions and recommendations through a forestry lens to improve watershed health while meeting their mission.
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    Towards Sustainable Harvest of Sideneck River Turtles (Podocnemis spp.) in the Middle Orinoco, Venezuela
    (2010) Penaloza, Claudia

    Despite 21 years of protection, sideneck river-turtles (Podocnemis expansa, P. unifilis and P. vogli, arrau, terecay and galápago, respectively), an important food resource for riverine communities (ribereños) in the Middle Orinoco, have not recovered. To determine the most effective conservation alternative for recovery, we conducted semi-structured interviews of ribereños and determined their attitudes towards turtle conservation; we collected discarded turtle remains in riverine communities to estimate the level of turtle harvest; and constructed a population model to study the effect of reduced survival and future extraction on arrau turtle population growth. We found that ribereños blame continued commercial extraction for the lack of turtle population recovery. Ribereños have a desire to participate actively in conservation and, despite feeling alienated by governmental officials charged with protecting turtles, prefer to be included in conservation efforts. However, ribereños also fear retaliation from turtle poachers. We found widespread turtle harvest along the Middle Orinoco centered on juvenile arrau turtles, and adult female terecay and galápago turtles. In our population model, reducing harvest causes an increase in population growth. A 10% increase in survival causes rapid exponential growth in arrau turtles. The population continues to grow in over 70% of projected scenarios with limited harvest from a recovered stock. Due to the widespread distribution of turtles and their harvest, we recommend increasing ribereño participation in conservation activities, closing outsider (non-ribereño) access to the resource, increasing enforcement against illegal commercial harvest, instating possession limits for subsistence harvest, and promoting localized captive breeding of faster maturing terecay and galápago turtles to satisfy desire for turtle consumption.